How to give your garden the Chelsea touch... continued
Jazz up your furniture
Every Chelsea Flower Show Garden seems to contain furniture of some kind and this could be your trump card. Maybe wooden furniture needs a lick of paint (or a new colour)? If so, sand it down on a dry day and apply a couple of coats of woodstain. Dress the furniture with cushions (see if you’ve got matching colours or ones that complement the colours in the garden), decorate tables with cut flowers or add a neat, small pot of succulents as a centrepiece to provide the finishing touch.
Shape plants to perfection
One of the joys of watching the Chelsea Flower Show is seeing perfectly shaped evergreens in the gardens, whether they're box, yews or junipers. If yours are looking a bit tatty, give them a trim to give clean edges for your photos. Place a plastic sheet under the plant before you snip so tidying up is easy. You may also have some
‘lop-sided’ shrubs or roses that are looking ungainly. While it isn’t the ‘textbook’ time to prune them, if a stem is growing in the wrong place it can be cut off at the base to improve the plant’s shape.
Make a plant list for your garden
Chelsea Flower Show gardens always have plant lists but don’t worry if you don’t know the names of all the plants in your garden (who does?). But if you know some, make a list to share with the group. See what old labels you can find lying around in the shed, and check your old pots, which sometimes have a sticky plant label on them. If everyone does this it’s a great way to discover new plants online or when we’re allowed to go and visit nurseries and garden centres again.
Keep self-seeders under control
Some plants can just become greedy and start to take over the garden (think of self-seeders such as Alchemilla mollis or the rampant perennial Acanthus mollis that spreads by underground roots). If you think that one plant has too much of the limelight, act now and pull some out to make sure that other plants aren’t lost or choked by them.
And finally…
For a bonus point, ask each gardener to come up with an alternative name for the ‘Chelsea chop’. The Chelsea chop is where you cut back plants such as golden rod, sedum and asters so that you get some later flowers on shorter and stockier plants. It gets its name from traditionally being done in Chelsea Flower Show week but this year it needs a new name!
Mulch your plants
Dry, bare soil won't be found in a Chelsea Flower Show garden but if you’ve got some gaps around plants, mulch it with some compost (or something more decorative if you have it) to leave it looking smart. Apply a mulch after a good rain and it will help plants hold on to moisture.